No no no no no no

Posted on November 7, 2005 in California Watch

Note: I don’t entirely follow the argument that I am about to make, but I do feel that there are elements of it worth considering when casting your vote. When the initiative process was introduced here in California, it was intended as a means of ending the corrupt power of corporations — especially the Southern Pacific Railroad. For a time this worked. Then the corporations started floating their own initiatives, usually as a means of offsetting measures that would compel them to actual change and meaningful regulation. This is happening in the case of the Proposition 78 versus the Proposition 79 prescription drug bills — the first has no regulation while the second does and covers twice as many people. Corporate opponents are trying to tell us that only trial lawyers will profit while hiding the fact that their own profits race well ahead of the rate of inflation.

How odd that we act as if there are no lawyers working for corporations who make it their job to help their company get away with things.

It may behoove we Californians to vote No on every proposition. Such is the opinion evinced to me by some voters whose wisdom I respect. Nix the first Six. Nix 79 and Nix 80. Not because we don’t agree with the spirit of the moves (except I don’t agree with the first six), but because when voters get involved too deeply in the legislative process, they mess things up.

Propositions come to us as fully written laws. We say yeah or nay. The problem is that there is no process of negotiation, no fixing of poorly written passages or amendments that fix problematic sections. You either take the whole package or reject it.

This process has brought us very fine changes such as the Coastal Initiative and the 1% millionaire’s tax that provides for the mentally ill. It also yielded us Proposition 13, the Lottery (or tax on the stupid), and Term Limits, both of which have damaged California’s infrastructure and legislative process. I remember, for example, how many renters who were promised rate cuts after Proposition 13 found themselves paying higher rents. Our term limits have crippled our legislature by preventing able men and women to serve their districts beyond the artificial limits prescribed by law and the wishes of their constituents. As California goes, the nation watches and the nation sees what California does to itself and says “No way!”

There’s another kind of proposition which hurts us, measures that I do choose to vote down. They came into use when voters became tired of seeing education funds squandered and rerouted by the legislative and executive branches. So they voted to require that a certain percentage of the budget be devoted to that. Then other groups tacked on their own wants. And the discussion and amendment process that formerly went to the legislature and the government was lost to us.

Why should we have career politicians make these decisions? Because they are continually educating themselves on the issues. Information flows into Sacramento telling them what is happening throughout the state, where the needs are. Much of the cutting and shifting about that happens is due to one measure: Proposition 13. If voters want an end to this, they should vote to stop this bill. In the short run, that will mean a rise in property taxes and a drop in property values. In the long run, it will mean a drop in other taxes and greater fiscal sanity. No legislature would have conceived a thing like Proposition 13 because legislators know the ins and outs of state budgeting. We voters must swallow our pride and pay heed to how our elected representatives behave in Sacramento. Know your legislator’s votes and if you don’t like the trend, vote her or him out.

A smart technique when confronting a proposition is simply to vote no when the proposition promises a tax cut, when it reserves a specific portion of the state’s existing tax income, or when you don’t know what the initiative does. If the initiative proposes a new tax, consider what the tax is going to be used for and, of course, who is going to pay it. (It is better to tax those who can afford it than those who can’t.)

I don’t know that we can ever eliminate the initiative process from California politics. Voter education in critical thinking can help. This is not a job for the government: the voter and the free press — which includes the blogs — must shoulder this task.

P.S. Nix the First Six and Yes on 79 and 80.

AHnold arrives with the phony ballots he desparately needs to win his special election